How Did the Renaissance Change Man s View of the World? · 14 How Did the Renaissance Change...

14 How Did the Renaissance Change Man’s View of the World? DBQ | 3

How Did the Renaissance Change Man’s View of the World?

The Renaissance was a period of big change in

European history. It was a time of intellectual

excitement, when art and literature blossomed

and groundbreaking scientific advances were

made. Over the course of about 300 years, the

Renaissance spread from its home base in Italy

to western and northern Europe. The effect was

like a sunrise making its way across the land.

To understand the changes the Renaissance

produced, it helps to review what European so-

ciety was like before it arrived. The time period

before the Renaissance is usually called the

Middle Ages, which stretched from the fall of

the Roman Empire around 500 CE to about

1350 CE. During the Middle Ages, the Roman

Catholic Church and the Pope were the primary

players in Europe. The custodians of cul-

ture—that is, the people who owned most of the

books and made handwritten copies of the Bi-

ble—were priests who often lived a closed ex-

istence inside the walls of monasteries. Schools

were few. Illiteracy was widespread. Most of

the population, more than 85 percent, was

peasant farmers called serfs who worked for a

lord and his estate. Serfs were little more than

slaves. Both serfs and their masters looked to the Catholic Church and the Bible to explain

the world. The art and literature that existed focused on Jesus Christ and the sins of mankind.

In the 1300s, important changes began to happen. Improved farming methods helped peas-

ants become more self-sufficient. More and more serfs gained their freedom and no longer

depended on lords. Some freed serfs migrated to towns, where they took up trades. The

number of merchants and bankers increased. Since these people needed to have an education

to effectively carry on their work, literacy spread. Eventually, educated people began to

question the teachings of the Church. A movement called humanism developed, which

praised the beauty and intelligence of the individual.

As more people became educated, humanism worked its way into the arts, literature, the sci-

ences, and medicine. This early Renaissance movement was especially vigorous in the

city-states of Italy—places like Rome, Venice, Florence, and Milan. The invention of the

printing press in the mid-1400s gave the Renaissance and humanism even more momentum.

Primarily, the Renaissance was an upper-middle class movement, but thanks to the mechani-

zation of printing, shopkeepers and street sweepers were able to afford books and articles that

discussed the new ideas spreading across Europe. As a result, people started to look at them-

selves and their world in a new way.

But what, exactly, was this new way? Examine the documents that follow and answer the

question: How did the Renaissance change man’s view of the world?